Sheer Awakening
by NickeltheRed
Summary: A missing scene from New Moon after Jacob storms out of the movie theater. Bella doesn't know it's happening, but Jacob can feel the wolf is almost ready to shed his skin.


**This looks into Jacob's first transformation. **

**All rights go to Meyer.**

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Jacob stared intently into his morning coffee as first light broke over La' Push. His hands clenched around the mug tightly, almost desperately. He had stormed out of the movie theater last night, practically leaving Bella and her poor marshmallow friend behind in the dust. He didn't know what was happening to him...this newfound heat growing inside him, this low tremble coming from the core of his soul...like a part of him was always in hibernation all his life, and now, it was stirring, finally climbing—clawing—its way to the surface.

Well, on some level, he could guess what the new feeling was; but he wasn't sure if he was ready for it this soon.

He sighed deeply, thinking of all the changes the future held and the dismal sound caused Billy to look up from the paper laid out before him across their kitchen table.

And with one glance, he could see all the speculations and all the questions blazing in his son's dark eyes.

"It's your wolf, isn't it?" he mused quietly, but eagerly. "He's awake."

-.-

The tribal tattoo came next, then, his hair. It had to be cut off because according to Sam, _ it would just get in the way during the change_. Still, it pained Jacob at first to watch his long strands fall to the floor under the swift snaps of the scissors, feeling as if their people's customs and symbolisms were somehow falling away with it.

But by the end of that week, the world had improved in a way that gradually made up for that hole Jacob saw left in their traditions. He understood that he was gaining more than he was loosing. He was seeing life through a different set of eyes. His senses helped him now to distinguish prey from predator easier than ever before, of who was in charge of him and who clearly was not.

His wolf was starting to teach him things Jacob knew he wouldn't learn in school. He learned to smell the height of the season riding on the winds, how to follow the water as a guide when maps weren't an option, he could feel the trees buzzing with a certain energy he hadn't noticed as a child, and he could hear the soil softly shifting beneath his bare feet as he walked, and he could tell what time it was just by seeing how thick the shadows were on the ground. The very Forces of Nature began speaking to him on new levels, and Jacob was learning to respond.

-.-

Bella was worried for him though. She called him constantly day after day, but he shoved those emotions aside for a while, for he knew his time needed to be dedicated to the wolf.

The wolf had his essentials too. He was just about ready to shed Jacob's skin, and in his own way, he had actually reminded Jacob he wouldn't—_couldn't_—be denied. Wolves weren't meant to remain caged, in any sense of the word. If the host wouldn't feed the wolf, theoretically the wolf was bound to find a way to feed itself...because surviving was what wolves did best. And if he and Jacob tipped their balance too far one way and weren't willing to live and act as one, then Jacob's very sanity would be at stake.

"She keeps calling. She'll probably send Charlie to check in on me soon if we don't say something, Dad."

"Don't worry," his father said that Sunday morning, speaking with a tone a doctor would probably use for a patient who was prepping for surgery. "I'll just tell Charlie you have mono. It's been going around lately in schools, anyway. You just keep focusing on yourself for now."

Hours later, surprisingly, Bella herself pulled into the driveway and confronted him with her annoyance. Jacob didn't like ignoring her for so long either but he'd improvised the an excuse to chase her off.

And Jacob happened to transform officially, on that very night.

Jacob remembered it very well, as it was branded into his thoughts thereafter. It hurt like hell, that was for sure. He never endured so much pain in his life. For anyone who was fated to become part of the Pack, the very first turning was always the worst due to the physical demand it called for. Their wolves always chose when they needed to be released from the mortal flesh, when they're just itching to take true form, and can't wait any longer.

Ironically, crossing that beginner's line to shapeshifting was like being reborn _and_ giving birth to something at the same time. It was entirely up to the person help the wolf and to coax it out. It definitely required team effort.

He remembered how his body curled and shriveled from the impact—he remembered feeling another burning sensation in his gut all of the sudden while trying to heat up supper on the stove...and on his father's immediate insistence, he stumbled his way outside, falling onto the grass beneath the light of the moon and stars, suppressing a scream. His fingers scraped against the sand. There had been no time to call Sam or Paul. It was just him that night. Just him, partly his father, and the wolf. Jacob recalled the agony of having his bones crack one by one, of having his teeth _grow_ and _curve_ into fangs. His muscles thinned and stretched to accommodate the wolf's shape, causing his clothes to rip away. His father had yelled at him to keep his breaths steady as he felt himself _rising_. He pulled on the wolf from within and the wolf pushed with him.

They pulled and pushed together until the wolf fully erupted. Finally, standing at full height, he shook himself off, ridding his coat of the excess blood, flexed his paws, briefly looked over at Billy who stared back anxiously and silently, and then he turned and bounded into the forest, howling through the darkness.

-.-

The following morning, humanized Jacob had snuck back into the house, nude and very dry-mouthed, searching for a clean pair of jeans. He spent the rest of that same afternoon taking a three-hour nap, trying to recuperate. He didn't even have the energy to locate his father and ask how many more messages Bella might've left him since then.

By sunset he was awake again, lounging helplessly over the toilet, heaving out his insides for the next half hour.

When Jacob was finally done, he spat into the sink and shuffled into the living room to actually find Sam waiting on the sofa smirking up at him. "You were in there for a while."

Huffing, Jacob sank down next to him, muttering, "Sorry. I was busy puking up bits of...rabbit, I think?"

There was a pause before both of them broke out sniggering over it.

"Yeah," Sam nodded in agreement, "It's always hungry for its first meal. But afterwards, our regular stomachs can't handle that much raw meat."

Jacob, however, was just glad for Sam's promises, reassuring him that the shapeshifting itself would get easier overtime, because of how the changing sped up with every transformation until the pain couldn't be processed. Not to mention Jacob could naturally change by freewill now, for his wolf was fully activated and ever so prepared for their next hunt.

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**I have a great passion for wolves and respect their mythology, and I always wished for more depth to the wolf-shifting aspect in the saga, but of course Meyer just kind of brushed the mere surface of it.**


End file.
